Ratings from the 80's

[MichaelGL]

Don't want to offend any fans of OLTL, as it is one of my fav soaps as well, but looking at these ratings you can see how it obtained that title as the redhead step child of ABC. 

[Broderick]

It's about a "three-way tie" on 7/1/1983 for #1 among GH, Y&R, and AMC.   

[kalbir]

One Life to Live was fortunate to be hammocked between All My Children and General Hospital. It's the daytime equivalent of a time slot hit.

[soapfave06]

OLTL is one of my faves too and I did notice they didn’t seem to get any direct rating jumps for several big events, unles so missed it, like the Karen Wolek on the stand confession, Marco/Mario exposure at the wedding and the baby switch climax.

By 1983 they lost their young ingenue in Tina/AE, Karen/JL gone and the show was kind of stagnant story wise until they launched the Viki/Niki story in 1985 with Tina back. 
 

I really wish they had some sort of shot in the arm between 1983-1985, as even by 1985 I think it took a while to build them back up. 
 

The only thing going for them in ‘83 was Viki/Clint and the ongoing Asa vs Bo with women in between. 

[JAS0N47]

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 7/11/83-7/15/83 & 7/18/83-7/22/83:

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FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 7/25/83-7/29/83 & 8/1/83-8/5/83:

[BoldRestless]

You're on fire! 1983 is just flying by.  

[JAS0N47]

Trying to get a lot posted while I can. Will be busier in the next week or so, so enjoy the quick posts while they last. But hope to continue posting 2 charts most days in September.

[Soapsuds]

ATWT steady.

Not much going on in July from a episode I viewed.

[GLATWT88]

Can't blame Loving's or RH's number on clearances. They're both over 95%, meanwhile EON hovering in the mid/high 70% and getting Loving numbers - just doesn't make sense.

[kalbir]

Loving was head-to-head with the second half of The Price is Right. Ryan's Hope was head-to-head with the first half of Y&R which was blowing up in 1983. Neither ABC show had a chance against the CBS powerhouses.

[GLATWT88]

Right, clearance wasn't the issue here, but their competition was tough. However, there wasn't much room to place them elsewhere in the schedule without potentially hurting the other soaps in the lineup. I still don't understand why there wasn't more push to get EON better clearance. 

[Paul Raven]

The 4 pm timeslot was too valuable for affiliates to give up I think. They could make much more with syndicated programming as they got all the ad time whereas the networks only gave them a certain number of commercials in the time period.

[beebs]

SFT getting a slight boost from the 8/4 Live show, but it seems like the show was getting a nice summer boost as it was. RH was getting hit from both sides that summer, between Y&R's resurgence and SFT starting to build its audience back (which, of course, they couldn't sustain), no doubt helped by NBC's recovery in the ratings after an awful few years.

Edited August 25, 2023 by beebs

[GLATWT88]

Capitol is also showing some growth. 

[beebs]

Quite a bit, most weeks a full point of more above where they'd been the summer before. Interesting to think what would've happened if they sustained that growth. I'm struggling to find a list of their headwriters anywhere. Is it listed in the Capitol thread anywhere, does anyone know? Just curious to know who was helming the show during this period.